Ernst Ludwig Kirchner. Street, Dresden. 1908

Welcome to Modern Art & Ideas! This course is designed for anyone interested in learning more about modern and contemporary art. Over the next five weeks, you will look at art through a variety of themes: Places & Spaces, Art & Identity, Transforming Everyday Objects, and Art & Society. Each week kicks off with a video that connects works of art from The Museum of Modern Art’s collection to the theme. You will hear audio interviews with artists, designers, and curators and learn more about selected works in the additional readings and resources.
Throughout this course you will discover how artists:
-- represent place and take inspiration from their environment,
-- create works of art to express, explore, and question identity,
-- use everyday objects to challenge assumptions about what constitutes a work of art and how it should be made,
-- and respond to the social, cultural, and political issues of their time through works of art.
Through the discussion forum prompts and peer review assignment, you will also have the opportunity to connect with other learners and explore how these themes resonate with your own life and experience.

DP

What a genuinely refreshing course that really caught me attention. Well done to the team behind this course as I am more interested in modern art after completing this course than ever before.

PY

Nov 01, 2018

Filled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled StarFilled Star

The whole program was very well organized, and I liked how the themes were not in chronological order. All the narration and artists’ talk were interesting and highly informative. Thanks!

수업에서

Module 5: Art & Society

Explore works of art created in response to the social, cultural, and political issues of their time. Gain a deeper understanding of history and contemporary society. Be encouraged to think critically about world events and how they are depicted.

강사:

Lisa Mazzola

Assistant Director, School and Teacher Programs

스크립트

Kifno and his colleagues in Germany created the language that we know as German expressionism a form of modern art that would be the reflection of the modern street life of Germany of Dresden especially right before the first World War. The center stage of this composition seems to be occupied mainly by women. You cannot quite make out the contents of their eyes but as they are so readily openly facing us the viewers, they seem to be offering something to us and what are they offering if not themselves? The figure of the child who occupies absolute center stage within the composition, is she the daughter of these prostitutes? Is she nice, well brought up child from a bourgeois society? Kifno doesn't quite tell us. He just puts together these jarring elements and it's up to us to figure out what this mad city is all about. There is something on the one hand, intoxicatingly beautiful with the rendering of this vivacious high-pitched hues that he's using. At the same time, one could say that there's something slightly nightmarish in the way that he is rendering it.